Of Wizards, Akuma, and Exorcist
Thirty-Four: Breakout
Disclaimers: I do not own any D. Gray-Man or Harry Potter characters/settings. They rightfully belong to Mr. Hoshino (D. Gray-Man) and Ms. Rowling (Harry Potter). Also, some conversations between the Harry Potter characters are direct quotes from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and that also does not belong to me!
"Valentine's Day?" Allen repeated, looking up from his book to stare at Lavi. "What's that? A holiday?"
"You've never heard of it?" Lavi demanded, clearly surprised.
Allen looked away, flushing slightly. "Yes, I have," he mumbled. "When I was with Mana some of the customers would talk about it. It usually happened around this time of the year, and I never had any idea what it was..."
Lavi was still goggling at him, mouth hanging open and the forgotten book held loosely in his hand. Then, his face broke out in an amused smile and his shoulders shook with mirth as he tried without success to hold in a laugh.
"What?" Allen said. "What's so funny?"
"I can't believe it," Lavi said, tears shining happily in his eyes. He leaned across the table and grinned in Allen's face, the white haired boy backing away to maintain a comfortable distance, shrinking in his chair. "Valentine's Day is the official holiday where people go up to the people they like and tell them so. God, Allen, it's only in ten days! Haven't you seen the tension about all those girls?"
Allen blinked up at Lavi in confusion.
There actually was a holiday for that?
He never knew that...
"I don't understand," he said honestly.
Lavi snickered. "You're so naive," he said in a chipper voice and ruffled Allen's hair. "Here's something: there are a ton of girls talking about you everywhere in the castle. Come February the fourteenth and you'll wish you could hide in a broom cupboard all day."
"Is it that bad?" Allen asked, his voice slightly squeaky with anxiety.
"It's really a good thing," Lavi answered merrily, "but when you're as popular as you are- and especially if you never had any idea about it- it's real tough."
Allen shivered, then his thoughts strayed away from his own wellbeing. Thoughtful, he said mostly to himself, "I wonder what Harry's going to do?"
"That Cho Chang girl?" Lavi said. "The one that looks like Lenalee? I dunno, but she'll probably expect him to ask her out, won't she? Let's just hope Harry won't mistake Lenalee for Cho...that would be horrible. In many ways."
"Komui has a radar for anyone getting too close to Lenalee," Allen sighed, "and Cho won't be happy either."
"But of course, it's likely he'd be hanging around her all day so no one would be able to get closer than ten feet to her anyway."
"That's a possibility."
And the two Exorcists broke into a laughing fit as they imagined what Valentine's Day would be like. As it was also a Hogsmeade weekend, they hoped Komui would allow them to leave the castle to look around at the village.
"Be quiet, the both of you!" the librarian, Madam Pince snapped at them. "Merlin's beard...you're in the library."
"Sorry, Madam Pince," Lavi giggled.
"What are you guys talking about?" Hermione and Ron asked, sitting down beside them at the table and setting down their quills, ink bottles, and parchment. The library was filled with fifth years studying for their O.W.L. (Ordinary Wizarding Level) exams. Harry wasn't among them, for he was supposedly with Professor Snape in his office doing Remedial Potions.
In truth, he was doing Occulmency.
"Teaching Allen about Valentine's Day," Lavi answered with a grin. "He had no clue what it was."
"You didn't?" Ron gasped. "Bloody hell, Allen. Valentine's is the best day in the year-"
"I was too young to learn about it from Mana, and Master Cross would never have mentioned anything like that to me, and after going to the Order I was too busy trying not to get killed to even recognize the existence of the day," Allen mumbled.
"You'll like it," Hermione said. "Everyone knows you love food. I'd expect you to be loaded with chocolate."
"I see Harry," Lavi said, and the black haired boy trudged into the library, white faced and sweating and looking as if he was a survivor of some mad science experiment or had just woken up with an immensely high fever.
"How did it go?" Hermione whispered as he threw himself into the chair beside Allen. "Are you alright, Harry?"
"Yeah...fine...I dunno," Harry said rougly, wincing. "Listen...I've just realized something..."
"What is it?" Allen asked, narrowing his eyes at Harry.
"That weapon Voldemort is looking for," Harry began, ignoring Ron as he jumped violently in his seat. "I think it's in the Ministry-"
"What do you mean?" Hermione said.
"The dreams and visions of mine..." Harry said, and launched into a story about a place called the Department of Mysteries, a long corridor, the one where he found Mr. Weasley...so on and so forth. Allen and Lavi weren't listening so closely to the story, for they already had a good guess what Harry was getting at.
"So...so, are you saying," Ron said in a low whisper as Madam Pince passed by again, "that the weapon- the thing You-Know-Who's after- is in the Ministry of Magic?"
"In the Department of Mysteries, it's got to be," Harry hissed back. "I saw the door when your dad took me down to the courtrooms for my hearing and it's definitely the same one he was guarding when the snake bit him- right, Lavi?"
The Bookman didn't say yes, but he didn't say no, either. He just gave Harry and his friends a hard look.
"Of course," Hermione sighed.
"Of course what?" Ron asked quickly.
"Ron, think about it...Sturgis Podmore was trying to get through a door at the Ministry of Magic...It must have been that one, it's too much of a coincidence!"
"How come Sturgis was trying to break in when he's on our side?" Ron asked.
"Well, I don't know," Hermione said. "That is a bit odd..."
"So what's in the Department of Mysteries?" Harry asked Ron. "Has your dad mentioned anything about them?"
Ron looked thoughtful for a moment. "I know they call the people who work in there the 'Unspeakables,'" he said with a frown. "Because no one really seems to know what they do in there...Weird place to have a weapon..."
"Weird?" Lavi repeated.
"It's not weird at all, it makes perfect sense," Hermione corrected. "It will be something top secret that the Ministry has been developing, I expect...Harry, are you sure you're alright?"
She turned to Harry, who was pressing his hands hard against his forehead as if to iron it. "Yeah...fine..." he said, loweing his shaking hands. "I just feel a bit...I don't like Occlumency much..."
"I expect anyone would feel shaky if they'd had thei mind attacked over and over again," Hermione sympathized. "Look, let's get back to the common room, we'll be a bit more comfortable there..."
"Ah-" Allen began, but lowered his voice and looked at Lavi apprehensively. "I don't think that's a good idea," he muttered, and Lavi gave him a questioning look.
Upon entering the common room, the five were hit by a strong burst of energy and a loud cheering, Fred, Geroge, and Lee Jordan in the midst of the din. "Headless Hats!" they exclaimed, and Lenalee, sitting near them with a slightly interested look, shrugged at her friends before Lee Jordan threw a hat on top of her head- which disappeared, as if on cue.
"Lenalee!" Allen gasped, but the now headless girl's hand groped around where her head would be and pulled off the hat, her head reappearing with an annoyed look. Somewhere to her left, George was doing the exact same thing, although with a lot more enthusiasm and cheeriness on his face as he did so. Allen could only stare in wonder, but Lavi was immediately on the floor laughing his own head off.
"How do those hats work, then?" Hermione mused as the Exorcists joined her, Harry, and Ron at the table where they were trying to continue their homework. "I mean, obviously, it's some kind of Invisibility Spell, but it's rather clever to have extended the field of invisibility beyond the boundaries of the charmed object...I'd imagine the charm wouldn't have a very long life though..."
"I'm going to have to do this tomorrow," Harry murmured, cramming the books he pulled out back into his bag. He still looked pale and ill.
"Well, write it in your homework planner then!" Hermione encouraged. "So you don't forget!"
Pulling the small thing out of his bag and exchanging weary looks with Ron, Harry seemed as if he wouldn't like anything better than to throw the homework planner into the fireplace.
"Don't leave it till later, you big second-rater!" the book squeaked merrily, and Hermione beamed at it.
"I think I'll go to bed," Harry said and left.
"Me too," Allen said, yawning widely. "I'm still really sleepy."
"Your fault," Lavi said simply.
"Good night, everyone," Allen said, ignoring Lavi and waving at Lenalee before he slipped into the dormitory after Harry.
Bumping right into him.
"Harry?"
The boy was laughing, quietly at first then louder...louder...louder...
Harry might as well have been a mad scientist who succeeded in completing a insane experiment. As Harry fell to the floor, still laughing, Allen, a bit frightened and apprehensive, crouched beside him and shook his shoulders, calling his name.
What's going on? he thought desperately.
"Harry?" he said. "Harry!"
It was at the point that Ron came crashing into the dormitory, face contorted in shock, although it seemed as if he had expected something like this to happen. The tall boy joined Allen's side and yelled,
"Harry? HARRY!"
And he hit Harry, hard, across the face.
"OW!" punctuated Harry's maniacal laughter, and he opened his eyes to stare into Ron's and Allen's faces.
"What happened?" Ron demanded.
"I...dunno..." Harry gasped. "He's really happy...really happy..."
"You-Know-Who is?"
"Something good's happened," Harry said. He was shaking badly, and Allen draped his coat over his shoulders. "Something he'd been hoping for."
"Hermione told me to come and check on you," Ron explained quietly as he and Allen helped their friend toward him bed. "She says your defenses will be low at the moment, after Snape's been fiddling around with your mind...Still, I suppose it'll help in the long run, won't it?"
Harry nodded in his dazed state, and Ron left for the common room with a small good night.
The next morning, before Allen ever had the time to say good morning to Harry and the others at the breakfast table, Lenalee whipped past him and Lavi, stuffing a piece of toast into Allen's mouth and handing the boy another handful of the bread, dragged him out of the Great Hall.
"Umph!" Allen grunted, nearly choking on the toast. "Lavi- what are you doing?"
"Summons from Komui," Lenalee answered impatiently, "to all Exorcists in the castle, us."
"It's urgent because the golems started screeching in our ears in the middle of breakfast," Lavi added. "And Hermione looked as if she saw a ghost while reading the newspapers...I'll bet it has something to do with that!"
"Ah- could I have that?" Allen asked a passing fourth year, who handed him his copy of the Daily Prophet with a pitying look, for Allen's face was turning slightly purple, what with Lavi's tight grip on his collar as he dragged him down the corridor. "Thank you!"
Allen quickly scanned the front page, and felt his stomach drop as he gasped, "Look!"
"What?" Lavi asked, and the three of them came to a halt in front of a gargoyle as Lenalee said the password to Dumbledore's office. When they hopped onto the moving spiral staircase, Allen showed them the Prophet. In large, bold lettering, a headline screamed out at them:
MASS BREAKOUT FROM AZKABAN-
MINISTRY FEARS BLACK IS "RALLYING POINT" FOR OLD DEATH EATERS
"The hell-?" Lavi gasped.
"Isn't this what Komui wants to talk to us about?" Allen asked Lenalee.
"I don't know-"
"It is," Komui suddenly said, opening the oak doors from the inside and pulling the Exorcists into the headmaster's office, shutting the doors behind them softly. The calming presense of Dumbledore was nowhere to be seen, they were the only ones in the office."Since you have the paper with you, why don't you take a look?"
Allen quickly looked down at the article.
"The Ministry of Magic announced late last night that there has been a mass breakout from Azkaban.
"Speaking to reporters in his private office, Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic, confirmed that ten high-security prisoners escaped in the early hours yesterday evening, and that he has already informed the Muggle Prime Minister of the dangerous nature of these individuals.
"'We find ourselves, most unfortunately, in the same position we were two and a half years ago when the murderer Sirius Black escaped,' said Fudge last night. 'Nor do we think the two breakouts are unrelated. An escape of this magnitude suggests outside help, and we must remember that Black, as the first person ever to break out of Azkaban, would be ideally placed to help others follow in his footsteps. We think it likely that these individuals, who include Black's cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange, have rallied around Black as their leader. We are, however, doing all we can to round up the criminals and beg the magical community to remain alert and cautious. On no account should any of these indivisuals be approached.'"
"That's horrible," Lenalee whispered after Allen finished reading. "Blaming it on Sirius."
"There's more," Lavi said, snatching the paper away from Allen and flipping through the pages. He grimaced. "Horrible, someone died. Look at this-"
He turned to the paper around so that Lenalee and Allen could read it:
TRAGIC DEMISE OF MINISTRY OF MAGIC WORKER
St. Mungo's Hospital promised a full inquiry last night after Ministry of Magic worker Broderick Bode, age 49, was discovered dead in his bed, strangled by a potted-plant. Healers called to the scene were enable to revive Mr. Bode, who had been injured in a workplace accident some weeks prior to his death.
Healer Miriam Strout, who was in charge of Mr. Bode's ward at the time of the incident, has been suspended on pull pay and was unavailable for comment yesterday, but a spokeswizard for the hospital said in a statement, "St. Mungo's deeply regrets the death of Mr. Bode, whose health was improving steadily prior to this tragic accident.
"We have strict guidelines on the decorations permitted on our wards but it appears that Healer Strout, busy over the Christmas period, overlooked the dangers of the plant on Mr. Bode's bedside table. As his speech and mobility improved, Healer Strout encouraged Mr. Bode to look after the plant himself, unaware that it was not an innocent Flitterbloom, but a cutting of Devil's Snare, which, when touched by the convalscent Mr. Bode, throttled him instantly.
"St. Mungo's is as yet unable to account for the presense of the plant on the ward and asks any witch or wixard with information to come forward."
"Bode?" Allen said. "Do we know him?"
"No," Lavi said, "but Harry and his friends do. I was talking to them the other day about what they did on Christmas, said they saw their old teacher and Bode was in the same ward."
"I asked Dumbledore about it upon reading the Prophet," Komui said, sitting down in a chair, "and I also contacted Arthur Weasley about it. Broderick Bode is an Unspeakble who works in the Ministry's Department of Mysteries. You would, of course, know what that means, won't you?"
The question was for Lavi in particular.
"Yeah," the boy nodded grimly. "They're on the move now..."